


white lilies

by bytheinco_nstantmoon



Series: we bring the rain [1]
Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex Has A Sibling (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex Has Bad Parents (Julie and The Phantoms), Alternate Universe - Fusion, Drifting Apart, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, I do not know how to tag this - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Luke Foster Rights, alex is ethan's younger brother and that's that on that, and what about it, for like one scene but still relevant, i mean obviously, the sibling is Ethan, whats the opposite of sibling bonding, yeah i actually wrote smth for this au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27466846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bytheinco_nstantmoon/pseuds/bytheinco_nstantmoon
Summary: Alex’s first word is “Ethan,” which makes their mom cry. It was his last, too, right before the end.-or; nothing has ever been permanent. Ethan Green's brother dies when he's seventeen.
Relationships: Ethan Green & Alex (Julie and the Phantoms), Ethan Green & Hannah Foster, Lex Foster/Ethan Green
Series: we bring the rain [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015422
Comments: 10
Kudos: 76





	white lilies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunsetjulie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetjulie/gifts).



> wow i can't believe this au exists for exactly two people aha anyway sofi now that im posting about the greens its legally required that you write about the fosters. okay cool
> 
> if anyone else is reading this- first of all wow, taste! second of all... i'm sorry

Their family isn’t good with permanence. They never have been. It’s something about them; a Green curse. A Green thumb, Ethan sometimes jokes bitterly to himself, is a hand that strikes too quickly. A temper that ignites on too measly a note. A voice that screams more naturally than it soothes. There’s a tension in their house that can’t be ignored. They ignore it anyway.

But ignorance isn’t permanent. Nothing is. Especially not them.

His brother dies when he’s seventeen.

.

.

Ethan is born on January 17th, 1978, and Alex is born on November 26th the same year. They’re ten months apart- practically twins. They take their first steps together, toddling across the living room carpet, in the summer of ‘79. Alex’s first word is “Ethan,” which makes their mom cry. (Ethan’s first word is “fuck,” which is entirely their dad’s fault. It does set the scene quite nicely for the rest of his life, though, doesn’t it?)

On Alex’s seventh birthday, Ethan wakes him up by throwing his whole body on top of him. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

“Stop screaming,” Alex grumbles, shoving at him.

Ethan smacks his hands away. “Wake up!” he yells again. “It’s your birthday!”

“I know it’s my birthday! Get off me!”

“It’s your birthday!” Ethan repeats, and shakes him again. “Get up, get up, get up! Mom made pancakes!”

Alex bolts up in bed. “Mom made pancakes?” he exclaims. In moments, both of them are scrambling down the stairs and skidding into the kitchen, yelling over each other in excitement. Their dad laughs and scoops Alex up into his arms, swinging him around.

“Happy birthday, kid!”

Alex waves his hands in the air. “Happy birthday!” he yells, looking too gleeful to realise his own mistake. Ethan laughs so hard he falls over.

They’re happy.

That’s not permanent, either. But it’s enough for now.

.

.

Ethan is nine years old, sitting in detention because he punched stupid Mason Turner in the eye, when the girl next to him leans over and whispers, “I like your patches.” She’s got long brown hair that’s turning gold in the sunlight and big brown eyes too intense for her face that make Ethan stutter a little.

“Oh, I, uh-” he gets out, and then gives her a thumbs up. She laughs at him. (She’s good at that.) “I’m Ethan,” he says hastily. “I like your braids.”

She hits him with one of them. “I’m Lex.”

“Lex,” he repeats. “My brother’s name is Alex.”

“Your brother sounds lame.”

Ethan shrugs. “Yeah. But he’s cool.”

“That’s not how that works,” Lex says. She’s got her nose wrinkled up like she’s annoyed, but her big brown eyes are sparkling. “You can’t be cool and lame. You gotta be one or the other.”

“Well, says who?” Ethan asks, crossing his arms.

Lex pauses. “Well,” she says, and then hits him with her braid again. “Says me,” she decides.

“I don’t know you. Maybe you’re wrong a lot. Maybe  _ you’re  _ lame.”

Lex recoils. “I am not!” she exclaims. She screws her face up at him. “You’re lame. You’re a bully.” Ethan shrugs. “I’m gonna hit you.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna do it.”

“Okay.”

She doesn’t.

The next day, Mason Turner makes fun of the holes in his sneakers again, and Ethan gets sent back to detention. He wouldn’t have punched him, honest, but he’s got a Green thumb, and besides- Lex got detention for saying a bad word, and it’s more fun to talk to her than to go home after school.

Four months later, she marches up to their house, dragging her little brother by the hand, and tosses him in Alex’s general direction before she absolutely wrecks Ethan at Donkey Kong. Luke is a little younger. A year, maybe, but Ethan wasn’t really paying attention when he said. He has the same big brown eyes, the same loud voice, but he’s a little softer around the edges than Lex is. He’s better suited to Alex. Lex is better suited to Ethan. Ethan’s always been a little rough. (Dad gets weird about it sometimes. Says stuff about how boys shouldn’t be sensitive like Alex, shouldn’t cry- it makes Ethan feel weird. He tries to ignore it, though.)

On Ethan’s tenth birthday, he celebrates by racing Lex to the arcade. Alex doesn’t like the arcade, so he stays at the house with Luke. It’s a little weird, celebrating without his brother, but he’s with Lex, so it’s okay. She’s his best friend.

Well, not his  _ best  _ best friend. Alex has always had that spot. But she’s close.

That night, Alex blows out his candles for him. “Hey! That’s not fair!” Alex shrugs, looking unrepentant. “I’m gonna blow out the candles on your birthday cake,” Ethan mutters, but then Lex shoves a handful in his mouth and Luke smears icing over Alex’s cheek and he forgets all about it, celebrating with his two best friends on either side of him.

.

.

On November 26th, Alex goes over to his friend Reggie’s house, so Ethan doesn’t get to blow out the candles on his cake. But that’s okay. He’s hanging out with Lex, anyway.

Alex comes home wearing a pink shirt.

Their dad tells him to take it off.

.

.

“Is there something wrong with me?”

Ethan glances up from his homework, startled. “Sorry, what?”

Alex is sprawled out across his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The baby fat has begun to drop off their faces now that they’re nearly fourteen, and sometimes it’s startling how sharply angled his features are. Alex’s brows are almost always furrowed now. He’s always been a little anxious, a little wrought with trepidation, but it’s gotten worse recently. It makes Ethan’s stomach turn sometimes. He cries when he gets too stressed, sobs and screams into his pillow, shaking down to his bones, shattering in his own bed late at night for no reason at all. He doesn’t like to think about Alex crying. His voice is quivering now, though, and Ethan has to swallow hard. “Well,” Alex starts. He sniffs a little. “Dad says I cry too much.”

“Dad’s full of shit.”

“Don’t say that,” Alex says automatically, but then pauses. “Well, I mean. Yeah, kinda, but maybe he’s right?”

Ethan frowns. “Well, who’s he to judge? He yells at the TV every night. What’s the difference between yelling and crying, right? Why’s one okay if the other’s not?”

There’s a lull in the conversation. Downstairs, Dad is screaming at some broadcasted sports game. Baseball is on tonight, if Ethan is remembering right.

“I guess,” Alex finally says. He wipes at his eyes. “I’m not, like- I’m not gay,” he adds. “Dad-”

“Dad’s full of  _ shit,”  _ Ethan repeats vehemently. His pencil is trembling violently in the force of his grip. “Ignore him. It doesn’t make you gay to cry. And even if it did, who cares? Be fucking gay, then. Make out with Luke or something. It’s the nineties, dude.”

Alex rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Okay, Ethan,” he replies, half deadpan, but it’s genuine. Ethan smiles back.

It’s not permanent.

.

.

On November 26th, Ethan walks in on Alex and Luke half-locked together in the kitchen, and they’re both laughing, and it’s obvious it’s happened before. He walks out before either of them notices.

“Uh, where’s my soda?” Lex asks as he reappears in the sitting room. She’s pouting. Lex doesn’t pout very often. Only with Ethan. It makes him feel kind of special, honestly.

He fumbles over his words. “Uh, I- I can’t… go in kitchens,” he replies. Lex blinks. “I’m… scared.”

“...Of kitchens.”

“Yeah?” Ethan says weakly. Lex just blinks again. “You wanna watch Grease?”

Alex and Luke show up halfway through. Ethan pretends not to notice that they’re holding hands under the blanket.

.

.

“We’re starting a band!” Alex is flush with excitement, his cheeks so pink that they match his hoodie. He hasn’t come running into Ethan’s room like this in awhile, but he’s here now, throwing himself across the bed. “Luke and Reggie and Bobby and I, we’re starting a band!” he repeats, like Ethan didn’t know who his friends were.

Ethan glances over at him from where he’s combing gel through his hair. “That’s rad.”

Alex is still grinning. His features are even sharper these days. Almost hollow, almost empty sometimes, and it makes Ethan’s chest feel weird when he sees the shadows that are just a shade too dark all over his little brother’s face. Right now, though, they’re all lit up like the sun, and Alex almost looks like a kid again. Ethan kind of wants to give him a hug. He doesn’t, because hugs have been weird between them for a while, but the urge is still there. “I’m gonna be a drummer. We’re gonna be famous,” he declares.

Ethan hums, turning back to the mirror. “Might wanna start brushing your hair, then,” he teases. Alex sticks out his tongue. “Where’d you get that hoodie?” he asks. He doesn’t recognise it.

Alex startles. “Oh.” He glances down at it. “I got it off, uh- a friend. At school.”

“Ah.” A friend. “What’s his name?”

“Jason.”

Ethan frowns, combing through his mind. “Jason Long?” Alex nods. “Huh. He’s cool. Didn’t know you guys were friends.”

Alex clears his throat, the noise bordering on awkward. “Well, we’re not anymore. It, uh- it didn’t last. He’s… I don’t know. He’s not the best… friend.”

It’s not that Ethan isn’t glad their parents don’t know about Alex’s sexuality. It’s just that at times like this, he’s honestly baffled how they haven’t figured it out. God, Alex is great, but he’s the worst liar Ethan’s ever met in his life. “Sorry about that,” he says. He finishes with his hair. “Good luck with the band. Keep me updated?”

Alex’s grin returns in full force. “Of course. You’re the best.” He’s wrong. But it’s nice to hear anyway.

On Monday, Ethan gets detention for punching Jason Long in the eye, because he’s got a Green thumb, and because that’s what the bastard gets for breaking his little brother’s heart. Alex looks suspicious when he finds out. Ethan asks about the band to distract him.

They call themselves Sunset Curve.

There’s something ironic about that. Something poetic about how impermanent the sunset is.

.

.

On Alex’s sixteenth birthday, Ethan is woken up by the sound of screaming. His stomach drops like a stone. He’s already panicking by the time he skids into the kitchen. There’s glass shattered all over the floor, and Alex is barefoot in the middle of it, that’s not safe, is it? But Dad is yelling, is raising his hand, and  _ that’s not safe- _

Their dad’s always had a Green thumb. It comes smacking across Alex’s face hard enough to make him stagger. He staggers straight into the glass. Ethan can hear himself yelling, can hear,  _ “Get the fuck away from him!”  _ so broken with ardent rage that he can barely recognise his own voice. Dad is still yelling, and Alex is stumbling backwards, and there’s  _ blood  _ smearing on the floor, and  _ that’s not okay,  _ Alex is hurt and there’s blood on the floor. Their dad takes a step in his direction, hand raising again, and Ethan lunges before he can even process.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he’s snarling, and he’s never felt like this before, never felt himself tearing up on the inside with anger before, and for the first time he understands how wrath is a cardinal sin. For the first time, he understands why it’s so easy to be a sinner. God, but he’d be this angry for a thousand days before he ever watched his dad lay a  _ finger  _ on Alex again.

He gets slammed into the wall so hard his breath is knocked away, but Alex is already gone, so it’s worth it.

Alex was never going to stay forever. Nothing’s permanent. Not even him.

.

.

Ethan hasn’t seen his brother in months, and Lex hasn’t seen hers in almost a year. He doesn’t know what happened exactly, just knows there was a fight, another battle in the Foster’s seemingly never-ending war, and Luke biked right off into the night. The same way Alex ran off into the morning. There were bloody footprints on the sidewalk until it rained.

Ethan hopes Luke and Reggie helped him get the glass out of his feet. That’s what best friends are for, right?

But anyway, it goes like this: Ethan hasn’t seen his brother in months, and Lex hasn’t seen hers in almost a year, and Sunset Curve is going to play the Orpheum. Hannah says not to buy tickets, says Webby told her  _ no, no, no, acid, bad things,  _ but there’s nothing acidic about watching his little brother become a legend, so Ethan buys entrance for all three of them and gives Hannah his hat so that she can feel a little safer.

They’re in line waiting, and he’s buzzing with an energy he hasn’t felt in ages, and Lex is pressed up against him, one hand in his back pocket, talking to Hannah about some movie Ethan’s never seen. Hannah is still fidgety, but she’s started to smile. Ethan tugs at one of her braids. “I like that jacket,” he teases. It’s one of his old leather jackets, studded along the shoulders. “You look cool. Almost as badass as your sister.”

Hannah huffs almost silently. “I’m more badass than her.”

“You are not!” Lex looks scandalised. “I’m the most badass person here!”

Hannah gives her a flat look. “No. Ethan’s just in love with you,” she says matter of factly.

Ethan almost has a seizure, but Lex just says, “Well, yeah, but-” and he has the sudden, dizzying realisation that she  _ knows,  _ and- well, she has a hand in his back pocket, and they’d gone out to the movies the other day, and-

“Oh my God, are we dating?” he asks, which would probably have been hilarious if the alleyway behind them hadn’t immediately erupted in sirens. And actually, it might have been hilarious anyway, but then he heard, “Those are my  _ friends!”  _ and his blood runs cold.

Lex has frozen under his arm.

“Bobby,” Hannah says. Her voice is numb.

Bobby screams something again.

But hey- nothing is permanent.

.

.

They get to ride in the ambulance.

He’s holding Alex’s hand when he flatlines. He’s screaming, he thinks, but he can’t be sure.

.

.

Nothing is permanent, and Ethan has to live with that, and Alex doesn’t. Alex doesn’t get to. Alex doesn’t get anything except a headstone in the back of the cemetery down the street and a bouquet whenever Ethan has spare change- white lilies, because they were Alex’s favorite, and Ethan likes to pretend he knew his little brother a little bit. He likes to pretend Alex was always his best best friend. It’s normal, he knows, to have replaced Alex with someone else. Most people aren’t still clinging to codependency with their siblings when they’re seventeen. But it’s not  _ fair. _

Alex’s first word was Ethan’s name. It was his last, too, right before the end, right before he slipped under- he’d blinked once, blearily, and mumbled, “Ethan?” in a terrible, tiny, breaking voice, and Ethan had said, “I’m here, Alex, I’m here,” and held on as tight as he could, and it hadn’t been tight enough. It hadn’t been tight enough.

He’s a sinner again, just like he’s always been, wrathful to boiling, but it’s all different now. It steams and simmers beneath his skin now, aimed inward, aimed at himself, and it hurts so much more. It’s burning him from the inside, ripping through his heart and his veins and up through his skin, and he wants to fucking tear himself open, wants to wrap barbed wire around his organs and pull until he can’t feel anything anymore. He just wants to stop being angry. He wants to stop hating the beauty in the sunset over the beach.

He hates everything now, except Lex and Hannah and the name that’s only stone now. He hates everything. He hates himself.

Lex doesn’t hate him, though, so he keeps a smile up. Sometimes, the anger fades a little, receding back into his lungs, and he can just breathe through it. Sometimes, he’s okay for whole days, whole weeks at a time. Inevitably, though, it comes rushing back in a burning tsunami that scorches him all along the inside.

He gives Hannah the pink hoodie, and she wears it every Friday, and Ethan can breathe a little bit easier.

“I love you, you know,” he says to the grave. It’s nearing nine. He needs to get home, but he hates going home, so he stays here instead, curled up on the ground in the cemetery down the street, staring at a name he can’t read through the impending dark. “Loved you. Or whatever. I don’t know what the grammar is.” He swallowed hard. The petals on the lilies are shining through the dim air at him. “That’d surprise you, right? You’d never believe me. I mean, when was the last time we talked? Even before you left, it’d- God. If I could go back, you know, I’d hug you every day. I don’t even like hugs. I just want to hug you. You- you were the best little brother in the world, you know that? I just… I want to remember more of you. You deserved more. You deserved so, so much more. You deserved to be a goddamn  _ legend,  _ Alex, I-” he had to cut himself off before he started crying, because if he started crying he wouldn’t stop. “I love you,” he said again. “I’ll- I’ll see you soon.”

He went to Lex’s trailer and let her hold him, because  _ fuck,  _ he hated going home.

.

.

He hadn’t meant it literally. He’d just meant he was going to buy some fresh lilies. He’d be back to visit soon. He didn’t mean-

Well.

It goes like this: it’s Friday, and Ethan is walking Hannah home from school, and it’s raining. He tightens his grip on her shoulder. “God, it’s hell out today.”

“Webby says it gets worse,” Hannah says quietly. She’s trembling under his hand. “Walk slow.” Ethan slows his pace. He hates how much he trusts Webby now. A damn imaginary spider- it sounds so preposterous. But Webby had said acid, and acid it was, so Ethan slows down.

It’s not enough.

It goes like this: someone slams into his shoulder, and he shouts, “asshole!” as he stumbles. The patch of mud is tiny, really, but his foot skids anyway. Hannah shouts his name as he staggers off the edge of the sidewalk. The taxi slams its horn, as if  _ that’ll  _ stop him, and Ethan doesn’t even process the collision until he tastes blood.

_ Ow,  _ he thinks, and then everything’s gone.

.

.

He doesn’t get a funeral. Alex didn’t either, so he’s not surprised, but it’s still kind of annoying. Like, really? He gives them eighteen years of his life, and he doesn’t even get twenty minutes of memorial? They put his headstone right next to Alex’s, though, and he’s grateful for that.

Hannah leaves lilies for them both every Tuesday and Thursday. Lex comes by every afternoon to tell him what a fucking idiot he is. She’s angry and empty and it hurts to see her, but she’s still so beautiful, and Ethan loves her so fucking much. He wants to hold her hand again. That’s the worst part of it, probably.

Hannah wears his hat everyday. That part hurts too.

He hadn’t meant it literally, you know? He’d just meant he was going to buy some fresh lilies. He can’t complain, though, not when he hears, “Ethan...” behind him when he’s wandering the beach one day.

He whips around fast enough to send him stumbling. “Alex?”

Alex blinks, like he’s shocked, and then shock turns to confusion turns to realisation turns to rage. “What the hell?” Ethan cringes slightly. “What the- how can you hear me? You’re not-” Alex shakes his head. “No, what the hell, you’re not allowed to be dead, you asshole-”

Ethan catches him by the shoulders. “Alex-” he tries, but Alex has never been one for interruptions.

“You’re not allowed to be dead!” he continues insistently. “You’re only- you’re not old enough, that’s not fair, that’s not okay, how  _ dare  _ you-”

“Alex!” Ethan squeezes his shoulders. “Alex. Hey. Hi.”

Alex is still glaring. “Hi.”

“Can I have a hug?” Ethan barely gets the sentence out before Alex is rocketing forward, nearly knocking him over with force. “Oh, okay-”

“I fucking  _ hate  _ you.”

Ethan pulls him closer. Buries his face in his hair. Alex is wearing the pink hoodie. Someday, Ethan will probably mention how that hoodie is the last thing he saw before he died, back when Hannah was stumbling towards the edge of the sidewalk with her arms outstretched, but he doesn’t like Alex would appreciate that right now. “I love you too,” he says. God, he doesn’t know how long it’s been since he said it.

Alex sniffs.  _ Of course he’s crying,  _ Ethan thinks fondly, and holds him like he can’t let go. He  _ can’t  _ let go. God, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever let go again. “I love you so much, you fucking idiot,” Alex says. “I missed you. Fuck you. God.”

Nothing is permanent, Ethan reflects, laughing into his little brother’s hair, but that’s okay. As long as he can get moments like this, he doesn’t need eternities.

**Author's Note:**

> hyperfixation combination to result in the sickest of amalgamations (: jokes aside !! this was really fun to write i love this au !! if i write more thats my business


End file.
